1. Technical Field
The invention relates to land use. More particularly, the invention relates to a method and apparatus for monitoring and responding to land use activities.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Any land based property, e.g. land, a building, an apartment, a commercial structure, which may include such resources as a water well, is not only an asset but also potentially a liability. The liability attendant with such a property is typically attributable to any pollution in the ground, any noise or air pollution related to the property, or any potentially dangerous use of the property. Therefore, the owner (or sometimes the user, such as tenant) of a property needs to protect his asset and manage such liability to optimize the net sales value or use value of the property (see FIG. 1, which is a graphic representation of the asset and liability aspects of real property).
The difficulty of managing land based assets and liabilities is that they exist in a dynamic environment with constant changes and outside influences (see FIG. 2, which is a graphic representation of the potential economic risks and losses associated with real property).
Events External to Site
Today more than ever, it is important to monitor events occurring in the vicinity of a site. These external events or activities can be of many different kinds, such as set forth in FIG. 2, but they not limited to such activities. For example, a change in zoning law can increase or decrease the land based property by either expanding or limiting the future use of the property. A change in traffic can also increase or decrease the property's value. In the case of a residential area the impact of a traffic pattern change is negative; in a retail environment certain kinds of traffic increase can be very positive for the use value and therefore value of the property.
In the event of underground pollution there is a serious liability related to the property. Often, even after a polluted site has been cleaned up, there remains some amount of residual contamination left in the ground because today's technology and/or exorbitant costs do not allow a complete clean-up. Furthermore, often the pollution is not limited to the site, but extends underground to neighboring areas.
Pollution is not limited to underground pollution. It could be, for example, air pollution or noise, which travels outside of the boundaries of a property. In the above cases, a property owner is often not only liable for the pollution attributable to the site owned, but also for it's outside reach, even though the owner has no control over such area. If today someone uses the land inappropriately the likely damages caused by the property owner increase. For example, there are an estimated 250,000 to 400,000 active and former gas stations in the U.S., where no more than 125,000 of those are actually active current gas stations. Gas stations are notorious underground polluters.
There is an additional important element of complexity, i.e. the pollution is often underground and is not limited to the boundary of land ownership. The plume of such pollution often reaches into neighboring properties and public roadways. Most of current and former gas stations, for example, have such underground pollution extending outside of the property boundaries, the plume (area) of which in most cases extends to outside of the property. For example, consider a day care center being built on a property in the vicinity of a current or former gas station, where the plume extends under that property. Years later it becomes evident that the gases released from the plume have caused a health damage to the people using the day care center. Without question, the gas station owner is liable for the damage, which now extends to millions of dollars in legal costs, damages, and possible penalties. In this example, the wrong land use in the vicinity of the property has caused huge damage in liability costs to the property owner. This damage could have been easily averted if the property owner had been made aware during the planning stage that a day care center is being planned at the site. In that event the property owner could have taken a range of actions, such as alerting the city planning department and asking them to revoke the building permit, providing an incentive to the owner of the property for the planned day care center to find a different site, or finding a safer use for the property, such as a commercial building with appropriate engineering barriers, or a parking garage, etc.
Events Internal to Site
It is also important to monitor activities occurring at the site. This is important for reasons such as unauthorized access and protection against fire and other emergencies. However, there is a new element and that is to monitor the land use at the site.
The land use can be restricted in a number of ways, such as:                Local and regional zoning restrictions;        Deed restrictions, i.e. restrictions which are documented in the deed of land; and        Institutional controls (for a definition, see below).        
This is often necessary because not all the pollution can be removed. Such limits, for example, specify that the land can be used for certain types of commercial use, but not for residential development, or that none of the ground can be removed or dug into.
Many institutional controls have been implemented over the past 3-5 years. However, to date there is no method to monitor the enforcement of such controls.